The Ridge(42)
After a long pause, Kimble picked up the folder he’d brought in with him and slid it over the table.
“Speaking of the artifacts he left behind—these are copies of the photographs he had on the walls.”
Roy opened the folder, saw the browning images, most featuring lanky men with harsh expressions and tools in their hands. With a few exceptions, they all seemed to be from the distant past, and from a specific group of men. Laborers on some unknown project.
“Why does he have so many labeled NO?” Roy asked.
“I haven’t the faintest idea. Most of them are that way, but there are ten with names. I’ve made the list there.”
“I see it.” Roy was scanning the names.
“Any chance you could help me figure out who they were, exactly? I know what three of them did. I don’t need any more information on O’Patrick, Estes, or… Mathis.”
Roy looked up and met his eyes. “All right. I’ll see what I can do. What did you find on O’Patrick and Estes?”
“No connection to Blade Ridge.”
There was more there. Roy frowned and said, “Come on, Kimble.”
Kimble sighed. “They both killed people. In different ways, in different decades, in different places. I don’t know how in the hell Wyatt discovered them, or why he kept their pictures, but that’s the story.”
“And Jacqueline,” Roy said. “So of the ten here, you already know that three were murderers.”
“That’s right.”
“If these other seven prove to—”
“If they prove to be, I won’t be surprised. Murder seemed to fascinate Wyatt. I’m trying to understand why. You can help me by telling me about them.”
“Why do you care, Kimble? It was a suicide.”
Kimble drained the rest of his beer.
“Wasn’t it?” Roy said, the first time any other possibility had crossed through his mind. He’d seen the corpse, had seen the gun in the dead man’s lap. But guns could be placed in a way to suggest suicide. Kimble would be well aware of the forensic response to the scene by now, and maybe there was something in it that Roy hadn’t anticipated.
“He did a lot of talking about how I would investigate this,” Kimble said slowly. “When he called me that morning, he kept talking about the differences between suicide and homicide. Made the outright suggestion that someone could be compelled to kill himself by another, and then it shouldn’t be considered a suicide at all.”
Roy was astonished. He said, “You think somebody else is involved in this?”
“I have no idea. But it’s my job to find out. And listen—you had an inordinate amount of time alone at that scene before I reached you. Would have been shorter, but Shipley flipped his cruiser.”
Roy held up his hands, palms out. “I didn’t tamper.”
Kimble gave him a measured stare, then said, “You’d understand why I might be skeptical of that, considering the stunt you pulled with the notepad.”
“I was walking around that crazy place and saw the names of my own parents written on one of those maps. Forgive me for a bit of curiosity.”
“I understand curiosity. I also understand that I gave you a direct order, asked you to turn over the notes you’d taken, and you gave me a handful of blank pages, then chose that time to mention Jacqueline and take my mind away. Not a bad play on your part, and it’s my fault for falling for it, but if you came across other things of interest in that place, I need to know.”
“All I left with was the names.”
“You didn’t find any cameras?”
“Cameras?”
“That’s right.”
“No, I did not.”
“A question of timing that I need answered: when you busted the bulb, that tripped the breakers and knocked out the power, right?”
“Yeah. I flipped the breakers back so I could see my way around to stop the bleeding.” He held up his bandaged hand.
“All right. How long was the power out?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Ten minutes? I’m not certain.”
“You heard the sirens, then heard the wreck. That’s what you told me yesterday. Correct?”
“Correct. I was going to go down to check it out, but your dispatcher was emphatic that I remain where I was.”
Kimble mulled on that, staring at the wood paneling above Roy’s head, and then refocused his gaze and said, “So when the wreck took place, when you heard the sounds of it, was any light on?”
It was a puzzling question. Roy thought about it, wanting to be sure he had it right, and then shook his head.
“Power was out. I went back in after I heard the accident. Found the electrical panel, flipped the breakers.”